


Pas de deux

by tatooinesun



Category: Soul Eater
Genre: Ballet AU, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Piano Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-03
Updated: 2016-04-03
Packaged: 2018-05-30 20:44:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6439798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tatooinesun/pseuds/tatooinesun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She tiptoes and twirls across the floor and his piano follows her for every step. Ballet AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pas de deux

**Author's Note:**

> Here’s my ballet au that no one asked for. It’s got sexy times because I’ve posted two relatively clean fics for this ship and I figured it was about time I sinned c:

 

Her ankles are swollen and her palms are raw and she doesn't want to be anywhere else but here; with a pair of worn pointe shoes laced on her fifth position feet and a barre secured tightly under her calloused grip. Ms. Marie's voice is a soothing white noise as she maneuvers her left arm through different reaches that are as familiar to her as breathing, losing herself in the rise and fall of her chest and the rhythm of the piano.

"Eyes up, chin out."

She points her face to the corner, arm curled in a graceful arc above her head.

Her body almost subconsciously performs the barre maneuvers to the letter, bending and folding without much forethought. It's the product of years of practice; she'd been watching her mama twirl across a dance floor before she could talk and her hand has been glued to this same barre from the tender age of five. Now, nearly thirteen years later, she could do this routine in her sleep.

"And deep spine, reach all the way out. Don't hold your breath Liz, loosen up."

In the mirror Maka catches her friend grumbling behind her as they dip into an elegant lunge and she gives her a sympathetic smile. Liz never did like to be singled out.

Ms. Marie flutters about the floor as they perform her selected maneuvers, adjusting an arm here and a leg there as she sees fit and clapping every so often to keep them on beat.

"And one and two and three and plié. Plié, not squat."

She hadn't been the instructor when her mother was a student here of course but Maka can't imagine a lesson without her melodic voice or vibrant enthusiasm.

They're on their second hour now and practice is coming to a close which makes it easy for her mind to wander. Her eyes are exploring the room for something to distract her when they land on the pale haired pianist trilling an adagio for their exercise. The reserved Soul Evans, younger brother of one of ballet’s most celebrated dancers, has accompanied the intermediate class for the better part of a week now and yet she's hardly spoken more than a few words to him outside the realm of hello and have a good day. He's quiet and keeps to himself and she's never seen him smile once but somehow her gaze always seems to seek him out at least once every practice.

And he's always staring right at her.

He has the courtesy to color and quickly avert his eyes back to the piano of course but it's been a recurring incident, something she'd been frankly unsettled by at first but now finds almost somewhat reassuring. He looks like he's fallen out of a dream and slipped through the cracks after waking, there's something so distantly familiar about him.

He's not looking at her today though. His face is melancholy, more so than usual and his eyes are following the notes of the fluid composition with rapt concentration. She watches him for a while longer, contemplating what could be wrong when Ms. Marie disrupts her reverie.

"And turn and finish."

She returns to first position and lowers her arms to curve above her thighs.

"Beautiful," Ms. Marie chimes. "That's all for today class. Excellent work, the recital piece is really coming along."

There's a flurry of activity as students scramble for their bags but Maka reluctantly pulls her hand from the barre and takes her time tugging on a pair of sweatpants over her tights and methodically unlacing her pointe shoes. She'd spend all day in this studio if she could, imprinting the scent of old wood and rosin into her memory for when the day came that she wouldn't return. A day that was approaching faster than she wanted it to.

Liz is waiting at the door, already eager to commence their weekly ritual of grabbing tacos after a practice session and she's on her way to join her when Ms. Marie calls her over.

"Maka, could I speak to you for a second?"

She knew this was coming. The registration for next year's classes had just reached its deadline and Maka's name wasn't on the list.

"You go on ahead," she says over her shoulder. Liz raises a brow, silently asking if she needs moral support. Maka gives a quick shake of her head and her friend shrugs before disappearing out the door.

She turns back and sees Soul hovering behind his piano, packing his sheet music into a bag. He still doesn't glance her way as she makes her way across the floor to where Ms. Marie is fiddling with her hair in the mirror. Her eye is full of sympathy but for some reason Maka can't bring herself to meet it.

"So this is going to be your last recital?"

"Yeah. It is." Ms. Marie doesn't press for an explanation and she's never been more appreciative of her instructor but Maka feels compelled to offer one, however half-heartedly. "I'm getting a little too old for dance I think."

"There are plenty of dancers who keep with it after high school Maka. Just because you're graduating-"

"Really Ms. Marie, I'm done."

The blonde woman places a hand to her arm and despite everything, Maka is grateful regardless.

"That's a shame, you're one of our best dancers. I suppose there's nothing I can do to convince you otherwise? You're good enough to try out for a more prestigious school. With enough work you could even score an apprenticeship with the New York City Ballet, I think you should go for it."

She meets the encouraging gaze of the woman who'd bandaged her knee after a fall during a routine at eight, who'd burst into tears when she'd landed a perfect assemblé at eleven and bought her a bouquet of roses for her very first recital.

It hurts to shake her head no, fidgeting with the duffel on her shoulder.

Ms. Marie retracts her touch and gives her a small smile. "Okay. But I want you to do a solo for the recital in May."

"A solo?"

"Yup. And you're going to choreograph it." She turns towards the piano. "Soul, can you come here a minute?"

The boy glances up from his bag and gives a stiff nod before crossing the room to slouch in front of the pair. Maka passes him a smile but he doesn't look up at her from beneath his cloud of white hair.

"Soul this is Maka Albarn. Maka, Soul Evans."

He does look up at her then and she almost loses her breath at how brilliantly red his eyes are. His shoulder gives a slight shrug and the corner of his mouth twitches into a tired smile which she can only take to be a gesture of hello and she tilts her head acknowledgingly.

Great. She's going to have to spend the next few months locked in a dance studio with some asshole who thinks he's too cool for school.

"You two will work together on a solo for the intermediate division. I want you to surprise me, make this something personal Maka. Don't dance for anyone but yourself."

That last phrase strikes her in a way that nothing has before and she takes it to heart.

"I won't." Her promise is sincere and she grabs Ms. Marie's hand quickly before she can leave. "And thank you."

Her instructor nods her head with a glimmer in her eye and then retreats to the back of the studio to begin closing for the night.

Soul who has remained silent for the duration of the conversation turns to her suddenly.

"Tuesdays?" His voice is brisk and deep and reminds her of crackling embers. She parts her lips, having expected something less throaty and lighter and god why did it sound so attractive.

"Yeah. That works."

"I'll see you at six o'clock." And with that the boy turns on his heel with a lazy wave goodbye. She watches him leave.

\--

"Maka! How was class today?" Her papa's at the door before she can cross the threshold with an eager smile she doesn't return.

"Fine," she answers, kicking off her shoes and toting her duffle towards the stairs. She's surprised he's home in the first place, most of the time she has the house to herself and she ignores when he stumbles in at two in the morning shitfaced drunk or with a girl on his arm. Most of the time it's both.

He's acting reserved however and there's a deep line between his brows which can only mean her mother had called some time during the day.

"Mama's going to be in Europe a little bit longer than she expected. She wants you to call her when you get the chance."

There it is.

She suppresses the disappointment - she's grown pretty used to it by now - and murmurs a hum of acknowledgement in a vain attempt to sound indifferent.

"And I've um, got some work leftover so I'm going to head out in a little bit princess." Sure he does. "There's pizza in the fridge. I'll be home for dinner tomorrow though I promise."

She's at her door now and she can hear him distantly rambling on from the floor below. She wonders if he's even aware they're not in the same room.

\--

"Ms. Marie is letting me choreograph my own solo for the recital," Maka says into the phone, curling the dated spiral wire around her index finger.

Her mother, four thousand some odd miles away speaks from the other end. "Oh that's wonderful Maka! I can't wait to see it for myself."

"So you're coming then?"

"Of course I am silly, I wouldn't miss your last recital for the world."

"Just a few more weeks right?" Maka asks hopefully, holding her breath.

"That's the plan."

She smiles into the receiver.

"I can't wait to see you."

"Me too kiddo. This foreign food is getting a bit stale.” Her mother pulls away from the phone and she can hear her exchanging words with someone. “Oh, there's my ride, gotta go dear," she says hurriedly.

"By Mama. I love you."

She gets a click in response, holds the phone just a bit longer to her ear like it's a seashell and she can hear the echo of her mother's voice ringing back to her, and then hangs up.

It's been two months since she's seen her mother and the calls seem to be getting shorter and shorter but each end with the same dialogue. The promise of a few more weeks and the empty click that follows. And every call Maka reminds herself this is all just temporary; the bed in her dad's tiny spare room, the handful of outfits she'd packed back when she'd only expected to be here a couple of days.

Her mom is coming home. She promised.

\--

Soul's not at the piano when she arrives at the studio at six on Tuesday. He’s sitting against the mirror with his long lanky legs spread out in front of him and a notepad on his lap full of scribbles that must only be coherent to him. There’s a cigarette in his mouth and the putrid scent is clouding up the air around him. Ms. Marie would have a fit.

“Fun with homework?” she asks, setting down her bag and joining him on the floor to tape her toes.

He hums in affirmation, running a hand through his already disheveled snowy hair. She watches him for a minute, eyes transfixed by the movement. His brows are in a perpetual furrow and his posture is even worse when he’s sitting down but there’s something very endearing about this rough introverted boy who walks with his hands in his pockets and won’t meet her gaze.

“You don’t go to the school here,” she observes. “You’re a senior too right?”

He shakes his head and the strands of hair become even wilder. She wants to cut them off. She wants to play with them. “I’m tutored at home.”

Not only is he the very definition of a smoldering protagonist from an Austen novel, his family is also evidently rich. Honestly what has she stepped into.

She takes his short worded replies as a cue to get on with it and rises to her feet, shifting her toes until they’re completely comfortable in her shoes. Soul is still seated on the ground, hands folded across his lap with no indication of moving.

She crosses her arms. "Aren't you going to play something?"

"Nah."

"Nah?"

He shrugs before gesturing to the empty studio. "Just dance and shit."

She was thoroughly questioning Ms. Marie’s choice of musician. "What kind of pianist are you?"

He quirks a brow and in that singular moment with the corners of his mouth pulled up into a smirk he doesn’t look half so intimidating. “A good one.”

“Smart ass,” she murmurs under her breath and she could have sworn that awkward cough he just did was to stifle a laugh.

She takes her time stepping to the center of the floor, aware of his blood colored gaze following her every move. It makes her nervous. It thrills her. She exhales slowly, rolling her ankles and stretching her legs to get warmed up and then closes her eyes, trying to visualize what she wants out of this performance. And then she begins.

All the while Soul is patient, content to sit quietly, taking drags from his cigarette as he watches her maneuver through leaps and turns, testing what feels right and what doesn’t. She finally develops some semblance of a pattern and has the first twenty seconds of her dance down by the end of the hour. It’s graceful and unconventional and she can see Soul’s rather poorly concealed smile when she twirls to a halt in front of the mirror.  

“There’s your dance and shit,” she bites back, sweat dripping down her neck and straw colored hair skewed from her pigtails, flying in all directions- not very practical for dancing in retrospect but she'd been too distracted by Soul to pin her hair up. “Or the start of it at least.”

In the brief second before he closes his notebook she can see lines of musical notes scribbled on the pages.

"Okay. I can put music to that." He climbs to his feet and she’s taken aback by how much he looms over her, even if his slouching does inflict upon his stature.

“That’s a relief.” She’s really trying not to be so sardonic but she’s had a pretty bad week and alright maybe it’s a little unfair to take it out on this boy that’s only half a pain in the ass.

“Y’know you’re kind of a brat,” he says.

She looks up to find him grinning, a sharp predatory grin that makes her feel small yet struck by all the same. He gives her pigtail a playful tug as if they’ve known each other for years and she laughs humorlessly in return.  

“And you’re not as scary as I thought.”

“You thought I was scary?” He looks mildly amused behind a waft of smoke.

She coughs and sputters and makes a big show of disapproving his bad habit. “All you do is play morbid piano songs and glare at everyone. It’s a little off putting.”

“Morbid? What are you an Oxford Dictionary?”

She folds her arms. “Some of us are _cultured_.”

He shrugs indifferently and there’s a vacant pause, conveniently timed for her stomach to growl loudly. She places a hand over it, cheeks burning.

He chuckles again and this time it’s less rooted in humor and more in sympathy. “Do you wanna go grab something to eat? I’ll buy.”

With an offer like that, how could she refuse?

\--

Soul Evans drives a motorcycle and smokes like a chimney and sitting on that bike he is every bit the cliche her parents had warned her against.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me.” The muffler is loud and there’s a tacky eagle emblazed on the side and there is no way she’s getting on the back of that thing.

He either ignores her completely or can’t hear her over roar of the muffler.

“Hop on Albarn.” He straps on a helmet and then tosses her a spare he procures from his bag and she fumbles when she attempts to catch it. He only laughs at her for a few seconds.

“You know I half expected you wouldn’t wear one.” She climbs onto the back of the bike hesitantly and tries to position her hands around his torso in a way that doesn’t make her feel completely awkward. Which is useless.

“I’m cool not stupid.”

“Could’ve fooled me.”

“Ouch. That one hurt my man feelings.” He kicks the stand back and the motorcycle spurs to life with a cacophonous roar. She’d cover her ears if her hands weren’t so firmly attached to his waist.

The short drive to the restaurant has Maka clinging on for dear life. She has a feeling he slows down the speed for her sake but the wind and the noise and his back against her chest are all a little much for her and she’s certain that when this stupid bike screeches to a halt she’ll kiss the ground, dirt and all.

There is a certain freedom to it however and she can definitely see the appeal. She can feel the low rumbling sound in Soul’s chest when he turns a curve fast or accelerates on an open road and when he glances back at her to see how she’s doing there’s an undeniable smile, more genuine and exhilarated than any of the few she’d witnessed so far.

She decides she prefers this look to his cocky grin or lazy scowl and she wants to see it more.

\--

Abuelo’s is the only decent sit down for miles and tonight it’s busy enough that no one pays much attention to the leotard adorned teenager and her leather jacket clad companion. Alright maybe there’s a little staring.

She’s only half embarrassed that she downs six whole tacos in front of him but for the record she hasn’t eaten any of the pizzas her father had ordered to compensate for his absence out of pure spite and she was positively starving. He looks mildly impressed at the feat however and she only feels a tiny bit proud of herself.

“Where the hell do you put all that?”

It’s her turn to shrug and act flippant when in reality her stomach is churning a little now and she really shouldn’t have eaten that fast.

“Your brother Wes,” she says, changing the subject. “He’s in New York isn’t he?”

“Rubbing elbows with the New York City ballet.”

“Your parents must be really proud of him.”

“Like you would not believe.” There’s something about the way his tone takes a bitter edge and his eyes shift that leads her to think she’s hit a sore spot. Wes Evans was a legend around their homely little studio. He was the first dancer from their town to go pro since her mama and half the trophies gathering dust in the studio were from him. And yet she had never known he had a brother. He leans forward, elbows on the table. “What about you? Mom and Pop thrilled with their little ballerina?”

“Maybe if they were home more.”

She doesn’t meet his eyes and he reaches out a hand, placing it over her wrist almost shyly. “Ah shit, I’m sorry.”

“I liked you better when you were quiet,” she teases and he throws her a bashful grin.

They exchange numbers after signing the bill and her wrist burns the whole ride home.

\--

Her phone lights up the room in a luminescent glow and Maka sleepily gropes for it on her nightstand, almost disappointingly registering Liz's name before swiping her thumb across the screen.

_this is how romance novels start jsyk_

Maka groans. She's never going to hear the end of this.

She'd texted her friend when she’d gotten home and had rather mistakenly spilled the beans on her extra practice sessions with Soul who Liz incidentally thought was gorgeous. She’d then spent the next few hours enduring a slew of texts involving Liz’s future fantasies of their budding nonexistent romance. She’d already picked out a dress for the wedding.

_liz he's just playing the piano for me_

_yuppp. and then ur going to bang on the piano_

_he’s kind of a jerk tbh_

_with a heart of gold_

_go to bed liz_

_mrs maka evans_

_GO TO BED_

\--

She learns a lot about Soul Evans over the course of the next month. For one, he’s left handed and doesn’t like to button the collar of his shirts. He takes his coffee black and listens to Art Tatum instead of Zeppelin and sometimes when he thinks she’s not looking he smiles that true, genuine smile at her that she’d only seen on the back of his motorcycle which she learns is his pride and joy because he’d bought that rust bucket with his own money. He’s offended when she calls it a bike.

He doesn’t hate his parents. He makes that much clear. He just can’t live up to what they want from him. But he misses his brother and talks to him every day on the phone.

He’s been playing the piano his whole life and she’s never heard anything more beautiful.

And in return she tells him things about herself, things that even Liz doesn’t know. She tells him about dancing, how much she needs it to thrive. She talks about her love of reading and guilty obsession with corny paranormal shows and how she wishes her mama would call more.

She forgets why she’s quitting when she’s dancing to the trill of his piano.

He looks positively appalled when he finds out she’s been living off of ramen and tv dinners for the past couple of months. “Didn’t anyone ever teach you how to cook?”

“Not really.” She tries to act nonchalant and hates the pity she feels in his gaze.  

Incidentally she wakes up the next morning to the almost forgotten scent of breakfast wafting up the stairs and she follows it to find Soul working his magic in the kitchen.

At first she’s completely affronted. “How did you get in here?!”

“A back window was unlocked,” he shrugs.

“I can’t believe you broke into my house to cook me eggs.”

“Scrambled or fried?”  

She sits on the counter in her pjs and beats the eggs with a whisk and when he chastises her on her seriously lacking stirring skills she flicks yoke at his face.

He sputters in disbelief. “Really Albarn? What are you five?”

She sticks out her tongue and the toast burns because he’s too busy chasing her around the kitchen while she giggles manically.

\--

She practices until her muscles ache and her toes are blistered and even then she pushes through the pain and practices more. Soul is in the studio every Tuesday without fail and sometimes they go past their designated hour and have to be shooed away by Ms. Marie and when she’s not at the studio she’s twirling and plié-ing down the streets and through the halls because this is her last dance and she’s never wanted anything else in her life to be more perfect.

“Can you go anywhere without dancing?” Soul jokes as they maneuver their way through the empty parking lot after a long winded session.

“Nope.” She grins and raises her leg in an arabesque, playfully swatting him on the arm with her pointed toes.   

"Why are you quitting ballet?" The question comes abruptly and nearly throws her off balance.

She stares blankly at Soul’s heavily lidded eyes and grips her tights between her fingers until her knuckles are white. "Because I don't want to do it anymore."

The silence of the empty parking lot is deafening. "You're such a fucking liar. Dancing is the most important thing to you Maka. So why are you quitting?”

Now’s as good a time to drop the bomb as any. "I'm going to med school."

"What?"

She huffs, blowing her bangs out of her eyes. "I'm going to an advanced public educational institute for four years to receive a degree in medical-"

"I know what it means idiot. I want to know why the hell you're doing that instead of twirling around on a stage in some big city?"

She chews her lip and challenges him instead. "Why do you stare at me?"

He tilts his head, brows furrowing. "Huh?"

She reddens. "When I dance. You’re always staring."

He’s quiet, for a long long time. "I guess we've all got secrets."

\--

Maka’s birthday is on a Saturday and she doesn’t feel like going out or throwing a party so instead she sits on the couch with her dad at the opposite end and watches old buddy cop shows with the phone cradled in her lap. Papa laughs forcefully at the cringe worthy one liners and tries to engage her in awkward conversation.  

He doesn’t talk about the absence of another straw haired woman but he does give her a leather bound copy of Treasure Island, a book she’d grown up listening to him read and the cake he’s baked her is rudimentary and far too pink for her taste but she hates him just a little bit less.

Mama still doesn’t call.

Liz does however and comes over that evening with a handful of movies and nail polish and “We are going to enjoy ourselves dammit.” She almost cries when she opens the door to find her friend there with a helium balloon in the shape of a butterfly. What did she do to deserve Liz?

“I’ve got horror, I’ve got chick flicks, I have god-awful bee movies. Take your pick.”

They settle on Sharknado and Maka laughs at the cheesy CGI while Liz paints her toes a pastel purple.

“These will chip off in a week with all the dancing you do,” she grumbles, firmly twisting the polish cap shut.

“I can’t _not_ practice.”    

“Please, you’re the best dancer out of all of us. You’d make us all look shitty even if you didn’t rehearse.” Liz shovels a spoon into her slice of cake. “Speaking of practice, how’s loverboy?”

“Fine,” Maka flushes. “And don’t call him that. We’re not lovers.” Her friend shrugs but there’s a smirk dancing on the edge of her mouth.

Liz conks out on the couch around midnight but Maka stays awake, thinking about the secrets Soul Evans doesn’t want her to know.

\--

Soul rolls up to her house on his motorcycle the next day. She hears his deafening muffler from her room and sprints to the driveway with a hasty “I’ll be back later!” in the direction of her very perplexed papa.

“Happy birthday,” Soul says when she slides onto the seat behind him, shoving a crudely wrapped package into her hands. He doesn’t bring up their argument from a few days prior and she’s glad the topic doesn’t hang over them.

“Soul you didn’t have to-”

“Just open it.” His oversized goggles obscure most of his face but the tip of his nose is burning red and she smiles quietly to herself.

She tears into the package and pulls out a metallic charm bracelet, adorned with a tiny pair of glittering ballet slippers.

“I hope it fits. I thought maybe you could add more charms to it, y’know.” He shrugs carelessly but she can see his intense eyes searching for approval.

She beams. “It’s perfect.”

He shoves his hands into his pockets sheepishly. “So. Do you wanna meet my brother?”

The Evans live in a house with ten acres of perfectly manicured lawn and a wrought iron fence and a six car garage. The carpet is so pristinely white that Maka is afraid to touch it but Soul assures her ‘he doesn’t give two shits if she muddies up the floor’ and so she takes her shoes off at the door and steps lightly. She quickly decides that Soul doesn’t belong in a house like this; pristine and immaculate and barely lived in. His green bomber jacket and worn doc martens are out of place as he shrugs them off in the foyer. In fact the only part of Soul that matches the spotless perfection is the white of his hair. He takes her hand and drags her down the hall and all the while she gapes at the sheer size of this house far too big and lonely for a small family.

“I knew you were coming a mile away. God you still smell like a walking chimney stack.”

Wes Evans is a direct contradiction of his brother. Whereas Soul is rough and dangerous looking, Wes has a sophisticated air about him and stands with perfect posture. He wears a carefully pressed button down shirt and slacks but his hair is still the same snowy color as his brother’s, albeit much better kept and they share the same toothy grin. Maka likes him immediately.   

He sticks out his hand for her to shake and she feels the rough callouses in his palms - the mark of someone who’s gripped a barre for years.   

“Is this the Maka I’ve heard so much about?” Wes gives her a wink and Soul shoves him lightly. “My little bro here says you’re an amazing dancer.”

Soul folds his arms, clearly cross at being outed. “The best. Better than you even.”

Maka’s stomach flips and she looks to Soul fondly. He looks back at her with a shrug and runs a hand through his hair.

Wes doesn’t miss the exchange and he whistles lowly. “That’s quite the testimony.”

“Shut up you,” Soul grumbles.

Wes mimes zipping his mouth closed and Maka laughs as Soul rolls his eyes at the ceiling.

\--

“He seems really nice.”

“He’s a pain in the ass is what he is,” Soul replies, but there’s a fond smile as he sits with his legs spread out on his bed.

Soul’s room feels like it’s in a different house entirely. There are posters of every genre hanging from his walls, music and movies and motorcycles of all shapes and colors. His bed is unmade and there are clothes spilling out of his dresser and cigarettes still smoldering in an ashtray but she likes the organized chaos. It feels like him.

“How long is he home from New York?” She’s sitting in the corner of his bed, tucked up against the wall with her legs pulled to her chest. Every so often their shoulders bump together and she pretends that she doesn’t feel a jolt of electricity shoot up her arm.

“Just a week. They don’t give him a lot of freetime.”

Wes is obviously one of the most important people in Soul’s life. He gets a dazed, wistful smile whenever he mentions his brother and Maka imagines she once must have worn the same expression when she talked about her mama. A long time ago.

She shifts her foot against his own and he bats it back in a playful tussle.

“You must miss him a lot.”

“Yeah.” He goes quiet. “Did you get to talk to your mom?”

Her throat is dry as she answers. “No. But she’s really busy, you know.” Busy with what she’s not entirely sure.

“Yeah. I know.” He takes her hand then and she doesn’t pull away. They sit on his bed in silence until Wes pokes his head through the door a few minutes later.

“Make sure you use protection kids.”

“Get _out!_ ”

\--

Her thesis paper on The Canterbury Tales is interrupted by a dull thud against her window. At first she excuses it as a stray branch but trees can’t stage whisper “Hey Albarn!” in a low gravely voice. Honestly her life is turning into a living breathing cliche from one of her novels. Liz would be beside herself.

She peers out her window into the driveway to find a ruefully grinning Soul, hands shoved innocently in his pockets as though he hadn’t just been pelting pebbles at her window.

She has the good enough graces to at least pretend she’s pissed off when in reality the sentiment sends her stomach reeling. “Are you out of your mind? It’s two in the morning!”

“Yup. And I knew you’d be up writing your stupid paper. So c’mon, time for a study break.”

“Where are we going to go at two in the morning Soul?”

“How about a walk?”

She quickly notes the lack of the noise making machine he calls a vehicle and takes one last futile glance back at her paper. She was going nowhere with it anyway.

“Wait there,” she hisses. He salutes her like she’s a Generalissimo.

She tiptoes through the house, taking extra caution over the creaky floorboards outside the door from where her father is snoring loudly within. He’s always been a deep sleeper. The stairs are a bit trickier to maneuver and her striped fuzzy socks nearly send her toppling off the landing but she makes it to the foyer without so much as a peep and she grabs a coat out of the closet on her way out.

“Nice pajamas,” Soul snickers, giving her monkey adorned ensemble a once over. She pulls her coat tighter around herself and shoves him with her shoulder.

“I can’t believe you _walked_ here.” The Evans household has to be at least a good few miles away in the ritzier side of town.  

“Didn’t want to wake your dad with that _bike_ of mine.” He shrugs. “Plus it’s good exercise.”

“Since when did you care about leading a healthy lifestyle Mr. I-Smoke-a-Pack-a-Day?”

“Hey, I lift my hands plenty to do that.” He crosses his arms behind his head and stretches. She tries not to stare at the exposed stretch of skin on his stomach that’s smooth and littered with a faint dusting of white hair leading below his cargo pants. “That’s a lot of strength training.”

She clears her throat. “ _Idiot_.”

They walk down the quiet street the side by side, arms brushing and paces matched under the iridescent glow of the hazy street lights. She points her toes in a fluid movement and steps delicately across the sidewalk.

“Always dancing,” Soul murmurs. She turns and takes his hand, ignoring his protests as she twirls beneath his arm and giggles when he trips over his own feet.

“Not bad, but I see why your brother’s the dancer.”

He laughs at this and she finds herself staring. He looks different at night, she decides. His brows are less furrowed and he smiles easier, peaceful and less burdened by whatever thoughts plague him during the day. She knows he battles with his own inner demons - he’s confessed as much to her in the quiet of the studio or curled up on the sofa of her living room.  

She hopes she makes things easier on him. She knows he makes things easier for her.

She’s still looking at him when she wraps her arms around his shoulders and he stiffens as she begins to sway them both beneath the flickering light of a lamp overhead. His shoulders are broad and she has to stand on her toes to reach them and his muscles are tight beneath her touch.

Slowly and carefully his red eyes meet her own and he hesitates for a second that drags to an eternity before resting his hands on her waist. His touch is anything but uncertain however; firm and decided and his shoulders relax beneath her hands and they begin to move in a slow rhythm across the pavement.  

“This is more my pace,” he says into her ear, voice husky and just above a whisper.

She hums her agreement, afraid of what she’ll say if she dares to open her mouth. They stay like that for a long time and she likes listening to the sound of him breathe, the telltale flutters of his fingers only two layers away from her bare skin, two layers too many.

“I’m afraid,” she confesses.

He pulls back to see her face. “What?”

“I’m afraid to keep dancing.” She can taste blood now, and she hadn’t noticed she’d been biting the inside of her cheek. “I don’t think I’m good enough. I don’t think I’ll make it to New York or a dance academy or even get out of this town. What if I put all my effort into going pro and it turns out to be for nothing? That’s why I’m quitting.”

He pulls away from her with a choking sound. “That’s the reason for the med school? You want _stability_?”

Slowly she nods her head. “I...don’t want to chase a stupid dream that might not come true.”

“You have to take that chance Maka.” His eyes are intense and passionate and he moves his hands from her hips to clasp her arms. “If dancing is so important to you than you have to go for it. Don’t give a shit what anyone says, don’t hesitate for even half a fucking second.”

She’s trembling now, partially from the cold and partially from the sheer exhilaration that his words bring to her. This had been her plan ever since her mama had packed her bags and left. She craves stability, craves a plan to fall back on because everything else is too much of a risk. Med school would provide her with a stable career, a basic life to satisfy basic needs. She didn’t want to echo her parents’ mistakes. But dancing would provide her with a lifeline.

She clenches her fists and stares up at him. “Why do you care so much Soul?”

He looks down at her and she’s never seen him so hopelessly lost. His mouth his ajar, eyes roaming her face and in that moment he’s a man drowning. She feels him expel a breath of air right above her shoulder and it sends chills down her spine.

His lips are on her own before she can register what’s happening and they’re cracked and hot and searching and his mouth tastes like spearmint and cigarettes. Something clicks in her chest and she relaxes against his embrace, letting his mouth do all the work as she takes the time to feel him and learn him and god this has been such a long time coming, why hadn’t they done this sooner? It’s fleeting however and he pulls away with reddened ears and a nervous smile.

“Because I love watching you dance.”

\--

Maka finds she likes kissing Soul. A lot. And they do it often. Between practice sessions and on the back of his motorcycle and nestled between the covers of her twin bed. She learns his mouth and knows it as familiarly as an old favorite book. She finds that kissing is a bit like dancing, there’s motions to follow and rhythms to match and nothing can compare to the fluttering in your heart as you do it.

She’s also eternally grateful that the weather is a little on the chillier side and no one will question her rather sudden obsession with scarves around her neck.

Their relationship doesn’t change much outside the realm of their constant need for physical affection however. They still go to Abuelo’s and she complains about his loud bike and he tugs her pigtails like they’re twelve, but there’s a weight lifted off the both of them and Soul’s once perpetual frown is almost non existent. And she needs him. More than anything. She hadn’t noticed that pending ache within her chest until it had been satisfied with his lips and sometimes she catches him grinning in her direction or he slows his pace so their hands can brush together and she thinks that nothing could be more right.  

Liz catches on pretty quickly to their budding romance. She’d arrived on Maka’s doorstep adorned with a smirk and a cake with the words, “Congrats of the Relationship” engraved in sloppy pink frosting. Maka goes a week enduring the ever constant chorus of _I told you so’s_ before she snaps and Liz finally lets her off the hook. Her Papa is still oblivious, and she’ll take her blessings where can find them. She’s dreading the day she and Soul decide to come clean.

They’re nearly caught several times too, not that their spontaneous makeout sessions ever lead anywhere illicit but that doesn’t mean that they don't progress beyond light touches and kisses with innocent enough intentions to be considered chaste and then one day, they do go further.

She begs him to teach her how to play the piano and it starts out virtuously enough as they sit side by side at the white grand piano in the studio after one of their last practice sessions. He places his index finger on middle C and directs her hand there with his own, lining her slender fingers to touch the keys. His touch is smooth and soft, a direct contradiction to her hands, worn from dancing and she revels in the feeling.

He shows her the keys, naming each of them as his fingers trail their way up a scale. She tries to pay attention as best as she can but his proximity and the trill of his low voice murmuring in her ear prove to be far more than distracting and her fingers are trailing up his thigh merely a few minutes into their impromptu lesson.

He stops playing and watches, hands still hovering over the piano. When his head turns in her direction she seizes his face, crashing her mouth upon his own. His chuckle resonates deep within his throat.

“Practice canceled?” he mumbles against her lips and she smiles, biting his lower lip in affirmation and feeling pleased at the groan it elicits from him. The next few minutes are a chaotic blur of tongues and limbs and soon she’s sitting on the piano with his mouth playing delicately at the curve of her neck, biting kisses into her paper soft skin while she drags her nails across his back, still tragically obscured by his cotton shirt.

“Please Soul. I _need_ you.”

He exhales from his nose and she feels it against her shoulder.

“You want to do this here?” He pulls away from her, red eyes lidded and longing and she tugs his head down and kisses him chastely on the corner of his mouth. It’s her answer to him, and he nods after a few seconds of silence before reaching for the buttons of his shirt.

Neither of them really know what they’re doing. What had previously been fueled by passion is now an awkward shuffling to shrug their clothes off, shadowed by the prospect of what’s to come. She’s excited of course, tiny butterflies swirl around her stomach in anticipation but so do a thousand scenario’s of dangerous what ifs.

But this is Soul Evans. Smirking, teasing, if slightly aloof Soul Evans and she’s never trusted anyone more in her entire life.

She knows her breasts are tiny and she has no hips to speak of but he’s looking at her with heavily glazed over eyes and a mouth ajar and in that moment she feels like the most desirable woman in the world. She smiles sheepishly and places a hand on her hip, clicking her tongue. “Well don’t just stare.”

“ _Fuck_ ,” he whispers lowly.

His legs are long and lanky and she watches them as he crosses the floor, eyes drifting up his bare body with her tongue between her teeth. He approaches her slowly and cautiously as if he’s afraid she’ll run if he advances too fast. Her body is tense but when he finally touches her she melts, crooning as his hands stroke just beneath her ribs, playing delicately with the muscles there. She’s better built than most her age, a product of her years of dancing, and he’s staring down at her with such a reverence that she wants to cry.

“You um - have protection right?” She squirms under his gaze.

“Yeah! Yeah. I was er, prepared.” She quirks a brow and he reddens in defense. “Just in case.” He turns to fetch a condom from his bag and alright maybe she watches his ass as he goes. He catches her when he turns back around and she feigns an innocent smile.

“You just like me for my body,” he grins.

“Oh no you’ve found me out _completely_.”

And then he tugs the condom on and he lifts her on top of the piano and she melts into jelly. He’s gentle and timid and her heart swells as he tests how much pressure to apply, and what makes her coil and sing. It doesn’t hurt, at least not to the extent that her novels and friends had stressed it. She’s so wet that he slides into her without much pain but there’s a general discomfort that has her shifting until the aching slides away to pleasure. They maintain eye contact the entire time and she feels as though she’s peering into his very essence as his expression cracks when he hilts himself within her.

His cadence is low in her ear in a constant running dialogue of curses and her name. Soul consumes her thoughts and her words and her very state of being and she whimpers into his ear when he buries his head into her shoulder and thumbs her clit with the hand that’s not supporting her against the piano. He plays her with the same delicacy that he handles the keys of a piano and she’s a rubber band about to snap. She comes in no time to the sound of his voice chanting her name like a prayer.

Soul is still thrusting into her and she watches his face in dazed fascination, blood colored eyes closed and lips parted, pale brows drawn up in rapt concentration. He has forgone her name and is now humming gruffly under his breath, eyes parting to take one last look at her spread out bare beneath him before pushing into her with a final grunt. When he spills into her she’s never felt closer to another person.

She’s panting and breathless and Soul only looks slightly smug when he pulls away.

They’re quiet for a few minutes save for Maka’s steady breathing and she watches his adam’s apple bob as he swallows before resting his forehead against her own. He curls his arms around her body which is hindered by her awkward position from atop the piano.

“Good?” he whispers and he can feel his chest vibrate pressed so close to hers. It’s such a small insignificant word but she couldn’t emit something more profound in this moment even if she tried.

“Mmm hmm. Good.”

They stay like that until they remember who they are, _where_ they are and then scurry to gather their scattered clothes, laughing at the piano sheets that are spread across the floor in disarray.

\--

She calls her mama a few days before the recital and it goes straight to voicemail. She doesn’t bother leaving a message. Soul holds her on the couch while she allows herself to cry for the first time about her mother and tells her to let it go.

The night before she goes on stage she gets a standing ovation from Ms. Marie when she rehearses the dance for a final time. She hugs the woman until her arms are numb.

\--

Her costume is white and pale and matches Soul’s hair. He scoffs when she makes the comparison and she holds the feathered tutu to his head with a laugh.

“Are you ready Maka?” he asks as she stares at her figure in the mirror.

“Yeah.” She nods her head firmly and knows she’s sure when her reflection mimes her confidence.

“Think about what I said. About your dancing.”

“Yeah,” she repeats.

The hall is packed with faceless occupants and elaborately dressed dancers from different classes and Maka is the last on stage. She focuses on the blinding lights overhead as she raises her arms and she can see Soul behind the piano, watching her with those familiar eyes as he has watched her from the very beginning. She flourishes her hand, and the music begins.   

She tiptoes and twirls across the floor and his piano follows her for every step. It’s a morbid dance, one done with grace and recklessness and child-like abandon.

She dances about her parents' divorce and her fixation on feeling neglected and her frustration over choosing stability in place of something she loves. She dances about the longing she feels for Soul and  the solidarity of his kiss and his hands on her bare hips. Most of all she dances for herself and the startlingly obvious realization she’s come to over the course of the last few months. She holds her breath when she dips into her finish because the applause is _deafening_. She feels revitalized. She feels born again. The entire audience has erupted but her eyes seek out the only person that matters behind the shelter of his piano, standing up from his stool beaming more proudly than anyone.    

Her mother never came to the recital but her papa was in the front row and when he rather tearfully hands her a bouquet of red roses she doesn't ignore him and instead accepts them with a hug because at least _he_ was here.

Soul rather timidly gives her another charm for her bracelet, a tiny metallic piano to hang next to her glittering slippers. She takes it in her palm and looks up at him brightly.

“I’m going to go for it Soul. Will you come with me?”

They both hold each other tight and she laughs until she cries.

\--

They head for New York the very next day. Their bags are piled and strapped securely to the back of his obnoxious bike and he has a cigarette in his mouth and when she curls her arms around his waist and rests her head against his back she laughs at how awkward this used to feel.

They’d called ahead the night before and Wes said they could bunker down at his place until they found somewhere to call home and Soul hasn’t stopped smiling since.

A true genuine smile that doesn’t fade when he kisses her deeply and she flutters under his touch.

“You're always dancing,” he says. “Even when you’re not.”

  
  
  



End file.
